A Single Step. Part 8. Venture visits Prince William Sound.

[Music] [Music] when it comes to cruising destinations in the Pacific Northwest Prince William Sound must surely be the jewel in the crown for boats too large to trailer reaching this gem means forsaking the protection of the inside passage for the treacherous waters of the Gulf of Alaska during the summer of 2013 motor yacht venture and Fleming 65 made the journey from Vancouver Island to Prince William Sound once in the Gulf of Alaska we visited beautiful but treacherous little yabai shaped like a fish with its mouth open to the turbulent waters of the Gulf of Alaska this alluring Inlet has a violent and tumultuous past late on the evening of July the 10th 1958 three small boats lay serenely at anchor in the calm waters of the bay aboard the Adria Howard any seven-year-old son were just settling in for the night there was a large rumbling noise from up ahead of the bay a slight pause I took that everything was over with a huge wave it looked like just a big wall water to you in life preserving these he said son start praying you're looking at this and this is exactly my first thought I had 40,000 tonight that thing and it started running out off the boat to the end of business we were swept up over they land up above the trees that's where I assumed that we were going to and amazingly their boat was washed back into the bay but others were not so lucky one was carried Stern first over last Shore say spit and dropped into the ocean the remaining vessel was swept under and sunk without trace while running for the entrance back in 1953 scientists visiting Lituya Bay and wondered why mature forests did not extend down to the shoreline where their place had been taken by bands of younger trees they surmised it must have been due to a tsunami of some sort but what could be the source of such an immense wave now five years later here was the answer an eight point three magnitude earthquake had broken loose 90 million tons of rock creating a gravity wave which had reached the astounding record height of 1720 feet put into stock perspective by this illustration a companion wave 100 feet high then raced the length of the bay at a hundred and thirty miles an hour stripping the shoreline to bare rock and leaving the bay awash with blocks of ice and the remains of thousands of trees in the wake of this upheaval scientists using tree rings and other evidence concluded that in past years there had been at least five similar events with an average interval between them of 26 years as we prepare to visit the two-year bay we were very aware that 55 years had passed since the catastrophic events of 1958 Cape Spencer light marks a separation of inland waters from the stormy seas of the Gulf of Alaska the weather God smiled on us and the ocean was calm he meant snow-capped peaks lining the coast for hundreds of miles were revealed in all their glory the entrance to the two-year bay runs north-south and it is not easy to spot from seaward the most prominent landmarks being a pair of conical Hills named the paps Range markers show the correct course through the channel but the rear beacon was hidden in the trees and revealed itself only after we were convinced that it must be missing during recorded history this bar has been responsible for the loss of more than 100 lives and demands respect but today the Gulf was calm our timing right and transit through the entrance presented no problem once inside we headed towards Cenotaph Island a cliff on its southern end was home to a colony of black Lake kittiwakes who wheeled around our heads against the backdrop of the immense mountains you dropped anchor Lourdes the tender and toward the Alpha Bay the Fairweather fault runs along the base of the mountains and cascade Glacia like its two companions is not glistening white but covered in dirt the scar from the huge rock fall which generated the wave is still clear to see as is the trim line marking its height [Music] photos taken in 1958 line up exactly with those taken today [Music] Mount Quincy Adams of 13650 feet and mark Krillin at 12,700 dominate the skyline for us the beauty and peace of Lituya Bay was stunning and we celebrated our arrival with a dram of Jura single malt whiskey but lurking in the back of our minds was the thought that it was an evening such as this that preceded the events of 1958 it was hard to imagine that this place of serene Beauty had been the same where hell had broken loose not once but many times [Music] a place where winters ferocious katabatic winds came screaming down from these same peaks at over 100 miles an hour beating the water into a frenzy and carrying it over the top of Cenotaph Island [Music] tendrils have Miss floated across the combat moving water adding a touch of drama to the stillness of the evening [Music] the following morning dawned calm we took the tender past Cenotaph island to the beach inland from las doce spit once ashore and the tender secured we walked along the beach towards the entrance we saw no bears the recent tracks in the sand were evidence that they were not far away wild lupins were in abundance and the shoreline was still littered with the remains of trees which had been uprooted by the 1958 wave walking was difficult over loose stones with every step an invitation for a twisted ankle Chris was worried that a curious bear might slash the tender leaving us stranded on the beach so we abandoned our walk and instead used the tender to approach the bar ever mindful of its dangers in July 1786 to French sailing ships the astrolabe and the blue Sol arrived off Lituya under the command of Admiral lapa whose two boats were launched to reconnoiter the channel but as the ships approached the bar the wind hold ahead and their sails were taken aback it must have been a flood tide because the two vessels were then carried into the bay on the current la pérouse later commented that during his 30 years experience he had never seen two ships so near destruction a few days later three boats were dispatched to survey the entrance with strict instructions to keep clear until the tide was slack ignoring these orders first one boat and then a second were sucked inexorably in the channel two boats and 21 men were never seen again knuckle Roos left a memorial to the lost men on the island which he named Cenotaph meaning empty tomb this memorial disappeared and was later replaced in 1985 a bronze plaque was installed by the Lituya Bay Historical Society but by 2004 this too had been vandalized and stolen nah Peru stay 21 days in the bay and went on to sail to Macao and Siberia before heading for present-day Sydney from there he went north where both ships were lost in the typhoon in the New Hebrides [Music] [Music] the following morning the day of our departure we awoke to find ourselves shrouded in fog the time of our leaving was determined by the tide if we waited it would have to be until the next high-water slack in 12 hours we cautiously felt our way down the bay past the kittiwakes we decided that if visibility improved to enable us to see both sides of the entrance it would be safe to proceed the range markers were invisible that we could follow our inbound course on the plotter the seas were calm but the water swirled with strong currents [Music] once clear of the boulders and cormorant Rock Chris swung venture through a wide arc and pointed our bowels north leaving in our wake memories of a truly remarkable place [Music] our next port of call is Yakutat from where we navigate the stunning waters leading to the hubbard glassier [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we called next a dramatic kayak Island this is the site of the first landing in 1748 by the Russian expedition under the command of bearing by a strange coincidence 37 years later Captain Cook also chance to choose kayak Island as his first landing on what is now called Alaska [Music] from here we made a direct crossing of the Gulf to Hinchinbrook entrance into Prince William Sound we followed a fishing boat into Cordova Harbor overlooked by a memorial two Mariners lost at sea many slips were vacant as most boats were taking advantage of one of the carefully controlled fish openings the season was in full swing for the famous Copper River salmon whose deep red and tasty flesh was attributed to the harder fight for the fish to swim up the powerful river Cordova has many canneries which together process over 30 million pounds of fish each year the town is also famous for the vast numbers of migrating birds that use the Copper River Delta as a stopover each spring these are mostly Western sandpipers whose main mating area is the Yukon these tiny birds have flown about 200 miles per day to reach here from San Francisco or in some cases even as far away as South America we could not resist taking a closer look at Bligh Reef upon which the exxon valdez had come to grief in 1979 even to the extent of following her exact course the red lines show our track over the reef with our 5 foot draft compared to 65 feet for the doomed tanker we were in no danger of suffering the same fate the departing ship had been diverted into the inbound shipping channel due to ice flowing from the Columbia glacier this is what the reef looks like on the depth sounder the glacier has retreated the further 12 miles and lost half its thickness since 1980 we anchored for the night in Heather Bay where huge blocks of ice were aground on the rocky shore [Music] in a cold rain we launched both tenders and toward the flows even to the point of touching them with the benefit of hindsight this was extremely foolhardy as we learnt when without warning one of the flows blew apart with a detonation like a field gun and disintegrated right alongside us [Music] a group of Hardy kayakers prepared to take to the frigid waters the radar shows the extent of the ice in Columbia Bay as the glacier continues its rapid retreat keep in mind that only one-eighth of the total mass of the ice is visible and the seven-eighths beneath the water melts faster than the top causing the floes to become very unstable [Music] during a second visit to Columbia Bay we had much better luck with the weather [Music] we cruise among a flotilla of ice floes carving at a prodigious rate from the face of the receding glacier the Columbia began its catastrophic retreat during the 1970s regressing more than 10 miles in 25 years in March 1989 ice from here obstructed the outgoing channel from the oil terminal in Valdez triggering the Exxon Valdez disaster ice floes provide haul outs for seals and this bevy of sea otters we keep our distance [Music] from here we passed through Valdez narrows to the town of Valdez the AIS showed many fishing boats at anchor awaiting the announcement for the next opening the harbor was jam-packed and we had to wait to be allocated a berth this fishing boat was registered in Astoria Oregon and we had been tied up next to her in Cordova [Music] [Music] all local harbors provide a philippine service with the remainder of the fish being discarded to the delight of the resident guys [Applause] then should look quite out of place among the fleet of commercial boats as soon as we left the harbor we were immersed in thick fog from here we crossed to the town of Cordova which we have visited twice before [Music] we are invited to join Robert aboard his Bower picker these boats can be trailered we head through shifting shallows to the fishing grounds open on this occasion for 36 hours at the appointed time and not one second before nets are deployed over the bow [Music] there's a pretty slick that was water Sam after one hour spent deterring seals who think this exercise is solely for their benefit the net is hauled in and the salmon disentangle normally a one-person operation robert is assisted on this occasion by venture crew member David who is trying his hand at this for the first time [Music] [Music] two tight narrow [Music] that's a red salmon big salmon hobby they don't pay as much for me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the catch is iced and later in exchange for a receipt in the form of a fish ticket is delivered to larger boats called tenders representing the processing company [Music] after a few hours we rendezvous with a floatplane which taxes up to the boat allowing us to step onto the place [Music] from the air we are able to grasp the full extent of the vast Copper River Delta with this maze of channels a road extends out to million-dollar bridge built in the early 1900's to service the Kennecott Copper Mine once span collapsed in the 1964 Alaska earthquake repaired a great expense in 2005 it was again put beyond the reach of road traffic when in 2011 the second bridge was swept away at Mile 36 [Music] [Applause] the glaciers and rugged terrain are breathtaking this would be a bad place for a floatplane to lose an engine [Music] [Music] [Music] we land safely on iock lake just outside Cordova dawn heralds the start of a new day in the naked islands using the power Davidge Chris and Kaylin soon have the large tender in the water [Music] venture carries two tenders including the small one which can be dragged up the beach here in hobo Bay we go ashore to hike to the site of an abandoned gold mine walking is surprisingly hard gentle meadows are not what they seem and ponds and swamps abound Steve loses his soul in fact he loses them both as they are sucked from his boots by the boggy muskeg hidden among the tangled vegetation are wild flowers like this aptly named shooting star unable to locate the mine and played by insects bushwhacking back the way we have come lacks appeal we are relieved to be able to reach chris aboard venture to pick us up in the big tender from this Beach we find this cave with the tide adjust the right height to allow us to enter we are just south of the epicenter of the 1964 earthquake which devastated all three towns and one native village within the sound some parts of the sound were uplifted as much as 35 feet while other areas sank allowing seawater to encroach on the land creating what are known as ghost forests we head south to Blackstone flocks of kittiwakes nest in every crevice powerful Falls are fed by meltwater from a hanging glacier nicknamed deathtrap out of sight from the base of the cliffs ice carved from its face can fall without warning on anyone unlucky enough to be below [Music] [Music] without a point of reference it is impossible to judge the scale of our surroundings it is not until we take the tender close to the icy face that we appreciate its immense height this is a photographer's paradise especially under the wonderful weather it has been our good fortune to enjoy [Music] the approach to the town of Whittier is along scenic passage canal built as a military outpost during World War two seventy-five percent of residents live in this one apartment block the town sits in the shadow of Whittier glassier and receives more than 200 inches of snow per year the two marinas have waiting lists of up to 14 years so we need to tie up alongside the charter boat discovery here we take on our first fuels and sleeping Juneau the town began life as a military outpost in World War two a rail spur tunnel through the mountain was built in 1943 but it was not until 2000 that a road sharing the same tunnel as the railway made it possible to drive the 60 miles to Anchorage [Music] the following morning we cross the fjord to make a brief stop at a waterfall surrounded by thousands of million Catholics [Music] we make our way to Harvard glass here at the head of college field [Music] we are surprised to see discovery our birth makin Whittier she is well into the ice and close to the action [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] discovery moves on [Music] as does venture [Music] [Music] [Music] a trip in the tender gives a sense of scale to this immense wall of ice and makes us feel very insignificant [Music] [Music] many of the ice floes carry debris from the glaciers and Steve works enthusiastically saving souvenirs from a watery grave this super-sized sample now resides in Southern California as a memento of native Rock gouged from the mountains centuries ago by the raw force of nature from her vantage point on the anchor platform Christine watches Ventures bow Nadja side rafts of floating ice [Music] [Music] at Whittier we had been invited by Duke to visit a shammy Lodge about 35 miles south and accessible only by boat or float plane we tie up at the dock and are given the tour of the neat Lodge nestled among the trees [Music] Dook checks his gillnets and returns with a boatload of freshly caught salmon [Music] he generously presents us with a pair of salmon filets which Pamela kindly cooks for us [Music] soon after our departure the following day a pod of dual purpose resembling miniature orcas streaked back and forth across ventures bound [Music] we moved to barnes cove off dryer bay on that island here in our favorite spot we rendezvous with a local boat out of Whittier whom we had met during our previous visit in 2015 [Music] along the shores of this beautiful anchorage we see three different black bears browsing along the shoreline the following morning we prepare for further exploration [Music] this includes a climb up to a null overlooking the tranquil Bay [Music] wildflowers include this sundew which is a beautiful but deadly trap for insects venture resembles a toy boat floating on the surface of polished glass [Music] the water is as clear as crystal using the tender and the kayaks we explore adjacent bays and inlets [Music] pillow lava forms when liquid rock flows into the water as seen today in parts of Hawaii [Music] as we passed down night island passage we hear a caller on the radio reporting the largest part of ochres he has seen for 10 years he is at point Helen which by amazing good fortune lies just ahead of us within 15 minutes we find ourselves surrounded by hundreds of orcas and humpback whales we barely move through the water and they pay us little attention sounds of their heavy breathing fills the air [Music] we go next to needle rock which is a favorite hole out for stellar sea lions [Music] further south we see numerous humpback whales feeding close inshore [Music] he passed numerous seals on our approach to Chenega the last of the Tidewater glaciers we visit during our month in Prince William Sound we hope the amount of ice is proof of frequent carving from the heavily Fisher glacier face we notch our way through extensive ice to reach his crumbling face we collect a piece of glacial ice and livers like diamond [Music] [Music] [Music] the retreating glacier reveals shoreline rocks over which meltwater Cascades the fractured ice cracks and booms from immense internal pressures until it reaches journey's end and tumbles into the sea it must have been a truly spectacular carving which created this beautiful ice sculpture what we see here is only 1/8 of the total with the remainder being hidden beneath the water [Music] along this southern coast is some of the most dramatic scenery we have encountered on the entire trip we entered Barry arm we're three Tidewater glaciers would once have come together and filled the bay with ice the original termination point of receding glaciers is marked by a moraine of debris where water depths are drastically reduced as shown on this chart and the depth sounder the most easterly of the three is Cox which flows in waves down to the water the center glacier is barri where a tour boat has brought kayakers to paddle amongst the ice floes [Music] the third glacier has receded from the water revealing rocks which clearly demonstrate that they too were once beneath the ice [Music] this glacier is named cascade after the nearby spectacular beautiful surprise glazier lies just around the corner waterfalls tumble down fed by meltwater from hanging glaciers far above our heads [Music] [Music] surprise has the reputation of being the most active glacier in the sound but we have to wait for hours with camera constantly at the ready before our patience is rewarded [Music] [Music] Kaskade has the largest waterfall by volume in the south [Music] [Music] [Music] returning east across the sound we explore hidden inlets through narrow entrances [Music] the tidal range is great and extensive areas are exposed when the tide is out arrow inlets must be navigated at slack time we explore shallow waters where shelves of salmon congregated the mouths of small streams and rivers in a shimmering mix of fresh and saltwater [Music] every Boulder carries a wig of trees sprouting from what appears to be solid rock [Music] the one on the right provides a perch for an adult bald eagle [Music] [Applause] [Music] now in her 12th season venture carries two tenders plus a pair of kayaks we are now back in the vicinity of the Columbia glacier where chunks of errant ice drift on the tide past burdened forests [Music] wild salmon congregate in fast numbers as they wait to enter the streams where they started life less snow in the mountains means that flow from streams has been reduced to critical levels at the time the salmon arrival [Music] ventures chartplotter records our rambling course during the month we spent exploring the wonders of Prince William Sound we pay another brief visit to Cordova and head for the Gulf of Alaska pausing only to take photos of venture with the backdrop of traumatic K percent Elias at the tip of kayak Island [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Fleming Yachts

Views: 202,911

Keywords: Venture, Fleming, Alaska, Prince William Sound, Cruising, Adventure

Id: KCHM7_Tx45o

Length: 61min 41sec (3701 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 07 2020